


Sound of a Smile

by stuckybarnes



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Autism Spectrum, Developing Friendships, Diary/Journal, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Muteness, Nonverbal Communication, Original Character(s), Original Fiction, Original Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-22
Updated: 2018-09-22
Packaged: 2019-07-15 12:21:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16063061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stuckybarnes/pseuds/stuckybarnes
Summary: When Darling, a nonverbal high school student, gets assigned to keep a journal at the start of his junior year, he expects to write about the same redundant life as last year, and the year before that, ad-nauseum. It isn't until a new student arrives days after the start of the year that Darling may reconsider his assumption. Ezra is clever, talkative, and a bit too jittery, but gives him the time of day, enjoys his company, and listens with more than his ears.Poor in the family department but rich in friendship, their junior year is more than revolutionary.





	Sound of a Smile

**Author's Note:**

> hey! this was an assignment i did for my creative writing major, wherein we had to write a short story! i hope you enjoy - i've grown fond of these characters.  
> suffering from late-diagnosed developmental disorders myself, i find the proper representation of them criminally slim in fiction. this piece thrives to not only accurate portray such disorders, but to also highlight that their humanness still remains.

 

**August 27, 2018. Monday.**

My name is not Darling. On my school ID, my name is something else. I’m sixteen and I have never spoken. I never babbled much as a baby, either, my mom says so. Sometimes I sign. I usually don’t. I don’t have much to say. I think that people rely on listening to know things too often, anyway.

I don’t like people saying my name when I can’t say it myself. Everyone at school calls me Darling instead. At first, the teachers only did it because they thought me being so quiet was _darling._ Which is right before those teachers started to think it was actually annoying. Mom didn’t seem happy about that last part. The name had stuck by then. But I like consistency and I like not hearing my real name, so I don’t mind one bit.

I wrote this to my school counselor, Mr. Hart, last year during one of our meetings, just like that, and he said that I had a very logical train of thought and explained things with a lot of exposition. I told him I should hope that I did. He laughed and let me leave early. That was our last session of my sophomore year.

Today was my first day of junior year, and also my first meeting again with my school counselor. He’s younger than my other counselors outside of school, but his hair is still running away from the front of his head. He wears loafers to school and has many inspirational posters up in his office. They all look like colorful fire hazards. They make the room feel very small.

He gave me an alternate assignment to do along with everyone else in my junior year class. While they have to write a series of essays throughout the first semester on a topic of their choice, I have to keep a journal. Like a documentary, but in writing, and I am usually very good at writing. I can’t do the essays because they’re too open-ended. I never know when to start and stop things, so you can see how this made me panic. The journal seemed worse, but then Mr. Hart explained it like a documentary, and I watch a lot of those.

I’m home now. School was fine other than that. My new teachers let me sit in the back, and let me keep my headphones in, and trusted me when I promised them that I wouldn't listen to music and just needed a noise buffer. None of the bullies paid attention to me, and they served sandwiches with the crusts off at lunch, which was a good sign for the rest of the day.

I didn’t tell Mr. Hart, but I still don’t know how much easier keeping a journal will be. And if it _is_ easier, it’ll definitely be more _boring_ , too. I know it’ll be boring, because I like keeping schedules. So nothing new happens to me.

**August 29, 2018. Wednesday.**

I forgot to do yesterday’s entry, but Mr. Hart says skipping days is okay. I see him every other day, so during first period I was in his office again.

“Have you made any friends?” Mr. Hart asked me. I don’t understand why adults ask questions they know the answers to. I shook my head anyway, because mom says counseling is a give-and-take process. _This isn’t a new school. Everyone has their friends already. I’m not one of them._

“Have you tried?”

I shook my head again but met his gaze quickly. _How would you suggest I attempt that?_

Mr. Hart smiled with mirth like he knew what I meant. I think he might’ve. “Fair point,” he conceded.

We spent most of the session doing nothing. Mr. Hart worked on grading things, and I sat with my hands in my lap watching my headphone cord rise and fall with my breaths. I liked the rhythm very much. This was usually how it happened anyway, and I think Mr. Hart understood really early on that he could help me best by just letting me sit there in the quiet without people bumping into me and other students talking over each other.

Before I left, he kept his hand on the doorknob and said, “Just know that you aren’t alone, even if you do feel like there’s a screen between you and the world.”

I didn’t really feel like that. But I wonder now if everyone else thinks that’s how it is.

**August 31, 2018. Friday.**

I didn’t hear him take the seat next to me at first. Writing this, I realize that’s ironic and kind of not-good. I already don’t talk. Being hard of hearing, too, would probably make things a lot worse for everyone. But I did have my headphones on, so it probably wasn’t my fault.

Ms. Rictor told the class he was a new student here. That made me sad, because he came late, which meant everyone already had their friends for the year. And then that reminded me of me.

But anyway, I didn’t hear him take the only empty seat next to me, until I felt the _woosh_ of air his backpack made when it pressed into the back of the seat beside mine.  He said, “hey,” in a really quiet and breathy way, and then started looking in his bag, and I didn’t worry about answering because Mr. Hart says that when things are said like that, they’re usually said in passing.

He sat with me in most of my other classes, because I almost always have an empty seat at my side. He shook his knee a lot, and spent most classes tangling and detangling earbuds under the desk. He did things other people would say are annoying, but that’s okay, because people always tell me I rock in my seat a tiny bit and sway when I stand.

My last class was Literature, and so was his, and we had free time to write whatever we wanted. “You don’t talk much, do you?” he asked, and cocked his head like dogs do sometimes. I hadn’t heard _him_ speak until that moment, either, so I don’t know how this seemed like a fair point to make.

But I didn’t answer and I could see him smile out of the corner of my eye like his point was proven, and then he shrugged. “That’s cool. I’m Ezra.”

He looked at me like he was waiting for an answer, and I tried looking back at him like he wasn’t going to get one. But his eyes trailed to my notebook and found my name. “Darling is a cool name.” That was all he said. I didn’t think it was that cool, but the way he _thought_ it was cool, was cool.

I had a session with Mr. Hart after class before I went home. He was wearing black loafers today, with dangling tassels on each shoe. One tassel was longer than the other, so I decided to stop looking down. He was swiveling in his wheelie chair and smiling at me. I didn’t hold his stare and he didn’t mind.

“There’s a new boy in your class. Have you met him?”

I nodded.

“Not a great home life, that kid. But he’s a sweet boy!” Mr. Hart nodded approvingly, and I felt like maybe he shouldn’t have told me all of that, because counselors aren’t supposed to talk about those things to other people. But I can keep good secrets.

“Maybe he would be a good friend,” he said it without looking at me, but his words sounded like music so I knew he wanted me to hear it. He went back to the magazine he was reading.

**September 2, 2018. Sunday.**

Ezra’s hair was very dark and very curly, and his eyes looked more gray-white than blue. He looked a lot more obvious than I did. Obvious, like noticeable. I was not obvious, like noticeable. I was shorter than him, and my hair was light and wavy, and my eyes were dark. This doesn't actually matter, but I’m used to looking, because people never talk to me much when they learn I won’t talk back. So I am used to observing to learn what people won’t say to me outright. Mom says I would make a good detective. I think detectives have to talk.

**September 4, 2018. Tuesday.**

In Chemistry, we had to do a group project. Everyone else had four people to a group, but it was just Ezra and me. It didn’t seem to bother him in the slightest.

Ezra turned out not to be good at chemistry. So I did the handwork and he volunteered to write the results down. We finished first, which made Ezra smile and nudge my shoulder.

The touch was too light. I yanked myself back fast, and the people by our desk all looked at me with the same face. It’s always hard to read expressions but I learned what that one meant when I was younger. Ezra looked worried instead. He said _hey, Darling, sorry,_ and the teacher gave us both candy for finishing first. Her smile looked plastic.

**September 7, 2018. Friday.**

The whole day was a Bad Day as soon as it started. Mom played music too loudly in the morning when she was getting ready for work, and it hurt my head and made me grit my teeth and made everything feel too too _tootootoo_ much. She let me stay home alone and I was thankful for that. I didn’t fall back to sleep, because I always wake up at the same time, but I stayed with my head under the blankets and my headphones on for two more hours.

**September 14, 2018. Friday.**

Ezra talks to me a lot. He talks when we are in class, he talks when we’re eating lunch, he talks during gym. I don’t mind this, because his voice isn’t annoying and he isn’t too loud, and he doesn’t flail his arms around when he talks like some people do. Nobody else talks to us, so this seems like as good a solution as any.

“Are your parents cool?” Ezra asked offhandedly, and he listened to my silence but didn’t expect an answer. I felt like he could hear everything I would’ve said if I wanted to, right there in the silence.

“That’s good,” he paused, swinging his feet on the gym mats we were sitting on. I don’t know why he didn’t play in gym class, but he never did. “My parents suck,” he said with a laugh, but I know the laugh was fake, because his eyes didn’t crinkle, and your eyes always crinkle when you laugh.

The gym teacher asked why Ezra was sitting out this time. He ignored me. “I have asthma,” Ezra said matter-of-factly.

“Oh, do you, now?” The gym teacher put his hands on his round waist. He wheezed when he breathed. Ezra nodded and then coughed for effect. I wondered if he lied so badly on purpose. I smiled.

**September 16, 2018. Sunday.**

Someone drew the computer mute symbol on my locker with a sharpie marker. I knew this was supposed to be mean, because kids at other lockers were laughing. And Kevin, the bully, was laughing with his other friends, who were also bullies. It seemed more obvious than mean, though.

**September 26, 2018. Wednesday.**

When I went into the bathroom to wash my hands after counseling with Mr. Hart, I stopped short when I saw Ezra sitting on the floor in front of the stalls. Ezra looked up at me and smiled in surprise (I think that was his surprised face).

“Fancy seeing you here!” Ezra said, gesturing to the tiled floor beside him.

It was lunchtime but I sat down by him anyway. I don’t like how loud the cafeteria is; the smells and the crowds are too much, and I think maybe Ezra thought so, too. Or at least today he did. We didn’t do anything except sit all period. I watched as Ezra gently kicked the stall door open each time it swung back, never letting it slam shut. We left when the bell rang, after ninety-three rhythmic stall door kicks. “Don’t take this as sarcasm, Darling,” Ezra started, laughed a little, “but you’re good company.”

**October 12, 2018. Friday.**

I gave Ezra my phone number a while ago. Actually, he asked to see my phone, and put in his number. And then he put in mine.

 _Does it bother you, not talking?_ he texted one night. It was the first time he ever messaged.

 _No,_ I wrote. He never asked for any details about _why_ I don’t talk. I liked that, because sometimes I don’t even know.

 _Don’t you have things you wished you could say?_ he sent a few minutes later.

 _Not things that people couldn’t learn if they tried understanding a little differently,_ I answered.

It took Ezra a while to answer back. _A little different makes a lot of people really scared_ , he finally sent. He was right, but I wished I could see what he was thinking. We text a lot now. Nothing was very important, but I feel like it all adds up into something very big.

**November 1, 2018. Thursday.**

It was late in the afternoon and I was sitting on the low roof of my house. The roof was my favorite place in the world. I liked the texture of the shingles, I liked the wind hitting my face. I liked watching the sky change colors, and I liked that everything was a little quieter on the roof. Nobody spoke on roofs because nobody was meant to be on them. Except for me.

I was laying down flat with my headphones in. If I looked close enough, I could see the material of my sweater dip up and down in time with my heart.

Mr. Hart always asks me if I feel like I miss out on the world because I always have my headphones on, or am always listening to music. At those times, I wish he looked instead of listened. I want him to know that headphones are what help me _not_ miss out on the world. I wouldn’t know where to start without them. It all gets comfortably muffled, not muted.

When there’s music on, it’s even better. Music is constant when people aren’t; I feel like I finally get what’s happening. I know what to expect in music; there’s an order and a pace that people just don’t follow. But I wish they did, I wish they could. For me.

I sat up fast when I heard the frantic _pat-pat-pat_ of running feet down the street. Nobody ever ran down the street. Down by the curb, Ezra stopped abruptly when he saw me.

 _“Darling?”_ He sounded surprised. I _felt_ surprised. School and home don’t intersect. But he was sweating, and his chest was heaving. His face was red and his eyes were shiny, so he was sad. I like to be alone when I’m sad, but I don’t think Ezra does. So I slid down the roof a little, and laid flat on my belly, offering a hand.

Ezra walked closer and narrowed his eyes at my hand. I felt like I could see the gears turning in his head, figuring out that this touch was okay but a light shoulder nudge was very much not okay. He clasped my arm hard. He climbed, and I pulled, and then he was on the roof next to me.  

“I didn’t know you lived here. I’m a few blocks down,” he said. No small talk. He never made small talk, and I liked that. It was quiet for a long time. I was leaning back with my arms propping me up. Ezra had his knees to his chest. “I bet you’d like to know what happened.” He laughed, but his laugh sounded hard. He deflected a lot, I’d noticed. I remembered that Mr. Hart told me he had a bad home life. I wondered if _that_ was about _this_.

“But I don’t wanna tell you,” he said quietly. His voice broke like he was hurting. I knew he was. I found my phone and messaged him, _Don’t have to._ And then, _Not talking says as much as talking._

He glanced at his own screen and huffed. He sounded relieved. _You’d know,_ he responded, but he was smiling when I looked up at him. _I’d know,_ I agreed.

Ezra threw himself down to lay across the roof. His head was by my feet. But his mind still seemed like it was racing around the block. Maybe his mind would find mine somewhere.

I wished our brains weren't such big parts of us. I really, really did.

**November 14, 2018. Wednesday.**

We had a fire drill first period which was so so loud, and they changed the lunch menu schedule at school today, so this was a Bad Day from the very start. Mom picked me up last period for a dentist’s appointment, and I almost screamed because the dentist was talking too much and the music was too loud and his cologne was too strong and he was smiling for no reason.

I stayed in my room the rest of the night and didn’t take my headphones off until Ezra texted me at midnight and asked me to open the window. Mom was asleep already. “There’s a park nearby I go to when I get stressed out, and today seemed bad for you,” he said with his legs over the window sill, stepping inside and yanking his backpack strap off the tree branch. There was a leaf in his hair from climbing up. “Do you wanna go with me? It’s all grassy, super quiet.”

His smile was _nothing_ like the dentist’s, so we went to the park at midnight.

It was nice, just like he said. All the benches were empty, and the yellow leaves were shaking in the wind. We stood with our hands in our jacket pockets under the shadow of a big tree. The world was so busy today. So loud. So I filled the space with my own noise and screamed up at the purplish-black sky. My breath blew up in white puffs.

Ezra was quiet for more than a few seconds, which wasn’t like him. His eyes were wide and his mouth was open a little when I turned to him. “You… yelled.” He paused for another second, “You yell?”

I took my phone out and messaged him, _Sometimes - when I feel like too much is happening. There’s nothing wrong with my throat, I just don’t talk._ Ezra thought about that for a little bit. Then he told me to put my headphones back on, and he screamed too, really loud. We kept screaming until our throats were scratchy and our voices tapered out. Ezra coughed, and I swayed side to side and twisted my headphone cord around.

People in the adjacent apartment building started sticking their heads out to find the noise, so that’s when we ran away. Our shoulders knocked when we turned to face each other, and we both smiled and laughed, crackly and raspy.

Screaming says a lot sometimes, but I think smiling says more.

**November 27, 2018. Tuesday.**

Today was a good kind of strange.

Kevin was frustrated today at the end of last period. I could tell, because Mom tells me that people are only rude because something is bothering them somewhere else in their life. I know this is a journal assignment, but I don’t want to describe what he looks like because then it’ll make him seem important.

Anyway. He called me a mute, which made me rock back and forth on the balls of my feet, because that’s not a good word. It’s _true,_ but not the way he said it.

But then Ezra started asking why Kevin acted so obsessed with me, which eventually made Kevin swing at Ezra’s nose and punched him hard enough to make a _crunch._

That _crunch_ made my list of Bad Noises, and I really _do_ have a list. I have lots of lists, of good and bad things. Lists are important; they help me keep my head organized, they help me remember important social things, they help me remember which textures I like and don’t like, and they help me remember which noises are bad noises. Like the _crunch_ noise that happened when Kevin’s fist hit Ezra’s face. Right now, it’s Number 2 on the list.

Mom said to always walk away if there’s a fight. She makes everything she tells me very clear. But this didn’t seem like an _always_ situation. So I took a step back but I stayed because Ezra is my friend. Ezra stumbled back a little, and his nose started gushing, but then he kicked Kevin in the crotch. The crowd disappeared really fast after that before any teachers could find us, and Kevin’s friends dragged him away with a red face. We were the only ones left by the lockers.

Then Ezra turned back to me. When he smiled, his teeth were lined with red. This was very much not a good thing. So I took his wrist and went into the bathroom at the end of the hallway. It was empty when I pulled out the little first-aid kit Mom always keeps packed in my backpack.

“You’re _Doctor_ Darling now?” Ezra asked excitedly, leaning against the sink, but his voice sounded thick. He spat blood into the sink before shoving crinkly brown paper towels to his nose. I was glad I had my headphones in, because this wasn’t part of the schedule at all. But Ezra wouldn’t stop talking which helped put things in the forefront.  

“I’m sorry Kevin is such a dick.”

I frowned. _He_ was sorry? He knew what I was thinking, and he half-laughed, half-yelled.

But that was my fault, because I sprayed antiseptic on his cuts and taped a bandage over the bridge of his nose. It probably stung.

**December 10, 2018. Monday.**

Ezra slept over yesterday and we went into school together. I’d never had a sleepover before. Sometimes I wanted to, because other kids did, but other kids also didn’t rely so heavily on keeping things structured and familiar. But Ezra had never minded me before, and when I asked him, he responded back immediately.

Mom had extra bedding in my room five minutes after I asked if Ezra could sleep over. Just because I hadn’t told her about him didn’t mean she didn’t find out anyway. She was excited I had a friend. And I was even more excited, because she was never excited.  

We played video games and did homework. Ezra told me about his last school, and told me about how much his parents didn’t care about anything. He said he didn’t care that _they_ didn’t care, but people don’t talk about things they don’t care about.

So I let his character kill mine in the video game, and turned to him. He laughed.

At midnight, when he was on the floor by my bed, wrapped head-to-toe in blankets from Mom, he texted me.

_Thanks for having me._

I could feel him watching me as I typed. _Thanks for being my friend._

We fell asleep with our phones in our hands. I know because mine fell and hit Ezra in the morning and we laughed.

**December 21, 2018. Friday.**

After our sleepover, Ezra has been coming over more often. I’m happy about this. I get stressed by most people quickly, and most people get exhausted by me. But this is good. This is nice. And mom is just as happy about him coming over as I am, because she doesn’t think he’s able to eat or sleep enough at his own house, and I think she’s right.

Sometimes he just comes over after school to eat dinner and then go home, other times he sleeps over. Other times we play video games for hours and do homework, and write about all the stuff we like to do and have in common. Sometimes he texts me in the middle of the night to open my window, and then he’s climbing up the tree in our backyard and throwing his leg over the sill. I started leaving the window a crack every night after the second time he did that. His bedding on the floor stays open and mom doesn’t move it.

Yesterday, he climbed in through the window at two in the morning, changed into pajamas in the dark, and huddled down under his blankets. I rolled over onto my side. He looked sad and angry at the same time. It made my chest hurt. I got my phone from the nightstand and messaged _Sorry._ That’s what you say when you’re sad someone is sad.

He responded back with _Sorry for coming like this._

That didn’t make sense to me. _Sorry your parents suck sometimes._

The light from our phone screens let me see him smile.

**December 26, 2018. Wednesday.**

Mom invited Ezra over for Christmas dinner. He sat next to me, and Mom sat across from us. I think Mom was so ready for me to have friends over that she actually had no clue what to do when it happened.

“I’m glad Darling has a friend,” Mom started, “I know he doesn’t speak, but…” She trailed off. _But._

Ezra and I shared a look, and then Ezra smoothed out the napkin on his lap and said, “I think he says more than most people at our school. But everyone only listens with their ears.”

**December 27, 2018. Thursday.**

I forgot something! For Christmas, Ezra got me a CD. The cover was a blur of blue and white streets. He said it was a Radiohead album, his favorite album, and that the melodies were strong and consistent. So it reminded him of me. I haven’t listened to it yet, but I know I’ll like it.

I got him a journal. On the inner flap, I wrote, _“for when nothing feels right being said.”_

He looked sad and then happy, and said, “I’m gonna hug you now.” And then he hugged me, and I hugged him back.

**January 2, 2019. Wednesday.**

School started back today, with a brand new semester. This meant that my journal was done. It didn’t   _feel_ done. It didn’t   _feel_ like anything. But I never know when things are finished. I submit it online tonight.

Ezra waited outside Mr. Hart’s door after last period during my session so we could walk home partway together.

“Did you keep up with your journal entries?” He was putting a poster up on the wall and standing on the desk. It overlapped another one almost entirely, and that made my skin itch.

I nodded.

“Good! Proud of it?”

I wasn’t sure. _How could I tell?_

Mr. Hart smiled reassuringly at me. “I’m sure it’s everything it needs to be.”

He didn’t say anything for a while after that and I didn’t mind. The tassels on his shoes were even this time so I decided to focus on them until he said something else. It didn’t take long. “Your teachers tell me you and Ezra have gotten close.” I nodded and smiled.

He turned toward me fully; I knew that less from actually looking at him and more from hearing the way his shoes scrunched up the papers on the desk from twisting around. I had to squeeze my knees to not smooth the papers out. “Darling, that is so, so great.” He sounded happy, like his voice was flying somewhere high above us both.

I nodded again, harder. I looked toward the door. Kevin passed by, this time alone. From his spot against the lockers, Ezra’s eyes trailed him the whole way down the hall, wary and warning. When his posture finally softened, he started chewing his gum again, blowing a bubble. It popped unceremoniously on his nose and chin, and his eyes went wide, cheeks red. He glanced in a jittery, nervous way at Mr. Hart’s door, but when we made eye contact, we both laughed.

It _is_ so, so great, Mr. Hart was right.

Sometimes, I really want to tell him _thank you,_ as much as he tells me. But I think he would tell me he knows that already.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> i really, really hope you liked that. leave a comment or constructive review!  
> let me know if you'd like to see me add more journal entries (because i'd like to, personally)!


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